Are you a 3-7 year litigator with trucking defense experience?  Would you like to to work with a small, progressive firm in Austin where you can develop and hone your skills and contribute to the success of a tight-knit team?  Perhaps you are tired of Biglaw, trading your soul for good pay but very limited opportunity or appreciation?

At our firm you’ll be taking depos, attending hearings, dealing directly with clients, and executing discovery plans on cases.  You’ll have the opportunity to assume full responsibility for handling cases from start to finish, with minimal supervision.  You need to be ambitious, a hard-working self-starter, well-organized, and committed to personal excellence and continual improvement.  We defend clients in a wide range of cases, including catastrophic trucking and auto accidents, products liability, HOA, premises liability, and general liability cases.

We are looking for someone with experience in trucking and transportation defense, insurance defense, and hourly billing practices.  Please submit your resume, cover letter, and two writing samples to Careers@TexasDefense.com.  Include your salary expectations in your cover letter.

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A Court of Appeals in California has ruled that it violates their distracted driver statute for a driver to access his maps app on his cellphone while driving:

Our review of the statute‟s plain language leads us to conclude that the primary evil sought to be avoided is the distraction the driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the phone. That distraction would be present whether the wireless telephone was being used as a telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock or a device for sending and receiving text messages and emails… Because it is undisputed that appellant used his wireless telephone while holding it in his hand as he drove his vehicle, his conduct violated Vehicle Code section 23123, subdivision (a).

This is going to lead to all sorts of interesting related issues. For example, how is this any different that a driver punching an address into a dedicated GPS unit? What about typing letters on a similar device, perhaps looking for a playlist on an iPod? The Court acknowledges as much:

It may be argued that the Legislature acted arbitrarily when it outlawed all “hands-on” use of a wireless telephone while driving, even though the legal use of one‟s hands to operate myriad other devices poses just as great a risk to the safety of other motorists.

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Wired Magazine on the “autonomous car”

Tom Vandervilt wrote a fascinating article on self-driving cars; it appears in the January 2012 issue of Wired Magazine.  The link is below. I was briefly nervous when Urmson first took his hands off the wheel and a synthy woman’s voice announced coolly, “Autodrive.” But after a few minutes, the idea of a computer-driven car […]

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Truck stops and freight stations – of the future …

For an interesting discussion of the logistics of space flight and exploration – and the truck stops and terminals of the future, go here.

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Congestion Costs Trucking $27 Billion Annually, Report Says

Transport Tropics, in its article here, reports that traffic congestion in the largest U.S. cities cost the commercial trucking industry about $27 billion in wasted time and fuel in 2011, according to a report released Tuesday. Congestion cost the total economy $121 billion in wasted time and fuel in 2011, up $1 billion from a […]

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Daimler Trucks is cutting “up to” 1,300 jobs in North America

They are cutting as many as 2,100 jobs worldwide to improve profitability, as reported by Bloomberg News and other news outlets.

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Texas Supreme Court reduces damages for trucker who refused to drive unsafe load

Last week, the Austin American Statesman reported the following story: Under a Texas Supreme Court ruling delivered [last week], a trucker fired for refusing to drive an unsafe vehicle saying he feared for himself and other drivers may have fared better in the courts had he followed his employer’s demand, driven the truck and had an […]

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Freightliner’s new concept crossover cab: “The Revolution Truck”

Very cool.  See their literature here.  

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Jerry Moyes, Swift Transportation, on use of LNG and dealing with the new generation of truck drivers

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Todays Trucking website had an interesting interview with Jerry Moyes, the founder of Swift Transportation: As CEO and founder of Swift Transportation — the largest trucking company in the U.S. — Jerry Moyes knows a thing or two about trucking. As the Keynote Speaker at this year’s Fleet Managers’ Breakfast at Truck World, we thought it […]

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Rule on Rearview Cameras for Cars Is Delayed for Review – NYTimes.com

Rule on Rearview Cameras for Cars Is Delayed for Review – NYTimes.com. Safety regulators will not complete the details of a rule mandating rearview cameras on all passenger vehicles until the end of the year, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Congressional leaders on Tuesday. The requirement is intended to protect children and other pedestrians from being hit […]

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American Trucking Association files challenge to new driver-fatigue rules

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The American Trucking Association filed a legal challenge to the Transportation Department’s new rules: The American Trucking Associations, based in Arlington, Virginia, filed a petition today challenging the regulation at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The group cited the Hobbs Act, a U.S. law that “prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion affecting […]

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The U.S. House killed provision in bill authorizing heavy trucks

The U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has removed the provision of the proposed transportation bill that would have allowed an increase in truck weight from 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds.

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Use a full defense team to investigate a trucking/transportation accident (redux)

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Here’s another example of a multi-vehicle accident involving tractor-trailers.  The plaintiff lawyers are bound to be circling.  It’s going to be a reconstruction nightmare.  As we posted a couple of days ago, this is the sort of trucking / transportation accident that begs for investigation by a full defense team.  See our earlier post. From […]

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Trucks on federal highways could soon be heavier

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The Safe and Efficient Transportation Act would raise the maximum weight for commercial trucks that routinely travel on highways to 97,000 pounds in Texas and most other states. The current threshold in most places is 80,000 pounds unless the truck has a permit to be overweight. The article linked to below has a very good […]

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Use a full defense team to investigate a trucking/transportation accident

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There was a fatality accident over the weekend in Idaho involving two small passenger vehicles and four tractor-trailers.  (Yes, the incident made the news in our Austin, Texas newspaper).  Apparently, a man lost control of his car and hit a semi.  The semi then lost control and collided head-on with another semi.  A third tractor-trailer […]

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